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Grant Analysis

Purpose & Target

Core objective: To develop and validate innovative Robotic and Autonomous System (RAS) capabilities for military battlefield triage and evacuation in mass casualty scenarios, including Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) conditions.
Explicit identification of target recipient type and size: Collaborative consortia of legal entities (public or private bodies), specifically fostering participation of SMEs and mid-caps.
MUST state if grant is 'SECTOR-SPECIFIC' or 'SECTOR-AGNOSTIC': SECTOR-SPECIFIC (Defence, focusing on military medical logistics and robotics).
Geographic scope and any location requirements: Participants must be established in EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories, OCTs) or listed EEA countries ('EDF associated countries'). Executive management structure must also be in an eligible country. All infrastructure, facilities, assets, and resources used must be located or held in an eligible country.
Key filtering criteria for initial grant screening:
Focus on defence research in autonomous systems for military medical use (triage, evacuation, CBRN).
Mandatory multi-beneficiary applications (minimum 3 independent beneficiaries from 3 different eligible countries).
Must be a legal entity established in an EU Member State or EDF associated country, not controlled by a non-associated third country.
Projects must include mandatory 'Study' and 'Design' activities as specified in the call.
Grant frequency and program context: This is part of the European Defence Fund (EDF) 2025 Work Programme, suggesting a recurring call or program context for defence research.

Financial Structure

Total available budget for this specific topic (EDF-2025-RA-MCBRN-ATE) is EUR 10,000,000.
The funding rate for Research Actions (RA) under this call is 100% of eligible costs.
Eligible costs are based on actual costs.
Equipment costs are reimbursed based on depreciation only.
There are no explicit matching fund or co-financing requirements mentioned due to the 100% funding rate.
Minimum and maximum grant amounts per project are not specified, but normally 1 project is expected for this topic's budget.
Prefinancing guarantees may be required.
Financial support to third parties is not allowed.

Eligibility Requirements

Organization Type & Legal Structure

Legal entities (public or private bodies) are eligible.
Self-employed persons (sole traders) are eligible if the company does not have a separate legal personality from the natural person.
Entities without legal personality may participate exceptionally, provided their representatives can undertake legal obligations and offer equivalent financial protection guarantees.
Associations and interest groupings can participate as 'sole beneficiaries' or 'beneficiaries without legal personality'.
International organizations are generally not eligible, unless their members are exclusively EU Member States or EDF associated countries AND their executive management structure is located in an EU Member State or EDF associated country.

Geographic & Control Requirements

Applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be established in an EU Member State (including OCTs) or a listed EEA country ('EDF associated country').
Their executive management structure must be located in an eligible country.
They must not be subject to control by a non-associated third country or non-associated third-country entity, unless specific guarantees approved by the Member State or EDF associated country of establishment are provided.
Subcontractors involved in the action (those with a direct contractual relationship to a beneficiary/affiliated entity, those to whom at least 10% of total eligible costs are allocated, or those needing access to classified information) and associated partners must also comply with these establishment and control conditions.
All infrastructure, facilities, assets, and resources used must be located or held in an eligible country, with exceptional usage of other assets requiring specific agreement from the granting authority.

Consortium Composition

Applications must be submitted by a mandatory minimum of 3 independent applicants (beneficiaries, not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries.

Exclusion Criteria

Natural persons are not eligible (with the stated exception for self-employed sole traders).
Entities subject to EU restrictive measures (under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)) are not eligible to participate in any capacity.
Entities subject to EU conditionality measures (e.g., Hungarian public interest trusts established under Hungarian Act IX of 2021 as of 16 December 2022) are not eligible for any funded role.
Projects that do not implement the objectives set out in Article 3 of the EDF Regulation.
Projects that do not concern new defence products or technologies or the upgrade of existing ones.
Projects that do not relate to at least one of the types of activities set out in Article 10(3) of the EDF Regulation.
Projects that do not cover the mandatory 'Study' and 'Design' types of activities specified in section 2 of the call document.
Projects concerning products and technologies whose use, development, or production is prohibited by international law.
Projects concerning the development of lethal autonomous weapons without the possibility for meaningful human control over selection and engagement decisions when carrying out strikes against humans (exceptions apply for early warning systems and defensive countermeasures).
Projects where background or results would be subject to control or restriction by a non-associated third country or entity (directly or indirectly), or where this would impact the results of pre-existing information.

Application Process

Application Timeline

Call opening: 18 February 2025.
Application deadline: 16 October 2025 – 17:00:00 CET (Brussels).
Evaluation period: October 2025 - April 2026.
Information on evaluation results: April 2026.
Grant Agreement (GA) signature target: By 31 December 2026.

Submission Process

Applications must be submitted electronically via the Funding & Tenders Portal Electronic Submission System.
Paper submissions are not permitted.
Proposals must be complete and include all requested information and mandatory annexes.

Required Documentation

Application Form Part A: Contains administrative information and a summarised budget; to be filled in directly online.
Application Form Part B: Contains the technical description of the project; template downloaded, completed, and uploaded. Limited to a maximum of 100 pages, including work package descriptions.
Mandatory Annexes (templates to be downloaded, completed, and uploaded with Part B):
Detailed budget table (EDF RA).
Participant information (including previous projects, if applicable).
List of infrastructure, facilities, assets, and resources.
Actual indirect cost methodology declarations (if actual indirect costs are used).
Ownership control declarations (required for all beneficiaries, affiliated entities, associated partners, and subcontractors involved in the action).
PRS declaration (if the project requires access to Galileo PRS information).

Pre-submission Requirements

All applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must register in the Participant Register and be validated by the Central Validation Service (REA Validation) before submitting the proposal.
At submission, applicants must confirm they have the mandate to act for all participants and that the information provided is correct, complete, and compliant with EU funding conditions.
Before grant signature, each beneficiary and affiliated entity must re-confirm compliance by signing a Declaration of Honour (DoH).

Post-Award Considerations

Successful SME beneficiaries will be offered business coaching to support their growth and market access.
Projects involving classified information will undergo security scrutiny; a Security Aspects Letter (SAL) will detail specific security rules.
Facility Security Clearance (FSC) may be required from the competent national security authority before grant signature for entities handling classified information.

Evaluation Criteria

Adherence to Call Scope & Requirements

Proposals are evaluated based on how comprehensively and effectively they address the 'must', 'should', and 'may' requirements outlined in the 'Scope and types of activities' and 'Functional requirements' sections of the call document.
Failure to address a 'must' requirement may lead to the proposal being considered out of scope and therefore inadmissible.
Failure to address a 'should' requirement may result in a negative impact on the scoring.
Addressing a 'may' requirement may result in a positive impact on the scoring.

General Evaluation & Award Procedure (Details in separate Call Document sections)

The overall evaluation process is described in section 8 of the call document and the Online Manual.
Award criteria, scoring, and thresholds are detailed in section 9 of the call document (specific criteria not provided in this extract, but typically cover relevance, quality, impact, and implementation).
Financial and operational capacity of applicants are assessed (section 7).
Proposals will be subject to an ethics review and security scrutiny.
Consistency with EU policy interests and priorities (environment, social, security, industrial, trade policy) and respect for EU values are considered.

Compliance & Special Requirements

Regulatory Compliance

Projects must comply with the regulatory framework of the EU Funding Programme, including Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2024/2509 (EU Financial Regulation) and EDF Regulation 2021/697.
Proposals must also adhere to the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) Regulation 2024/795.
Projects must comply with EU policy interests and priorities, such as environment, social, security, industrial, and trade policy.
Projects must respect EU values and the European Commission's policy regarding reputational matters.

Ethical Standards

Projects must comply with the highest ethical standards (including research integrity) and all applicable EU, international, and national laws.
An ethics review is mandatory for all proposals.

Security Requirements

Projects involving classified information must undergo security scrutiny.
If a specific security framework is not set up by the Member States, rules will be governed by Commission Decision 2015/444 and its implementing rules.
Projects cannot be funded if they involve classified information at the TRES SECRET UE/EU TOP SECRET level (or equivalent).
Information classified CONFIDENTIEL UE/EU CONFIDENTIAL or higher (and RESTREINT UE/EU RESTRICTED if national rules require) may only be created or accessed on premises with Facility Security Clearance (FSC) and handled by persons with valid Personnel Security Clearance (PSC) and a need-to-know.
Classified information generated by the project will be under the originatorship of the Member States involved if a specific security framework is established.
Action tasks involving classified information may only be subcontracted with prior written approval from the granting authority and to eligible entities.
Disclosure of classified information to third parties requires prior written approval from the granting authority.
Beneficiaries must ensure projects are not subject to third-country/international organisation security requirements that could affect implementation or the grant award.

Intellectual Property & Data

Projects where background or results would be subject to control or restriction by a non-associated third country or entity (including through technology transfer) are not eligible.
The project should address security and data protection requirements relevant to handling sensitive military and patient data.

Risk Management

Proposals must define methods to achieve physical protection for patients and systems during evacuation and ensure platforms’ survivability.
Project activities should optimize platform behavior (planning and operation) based on risk assessment.

Strategic & Unique Considerations

The grant explicitly targets collaborative research and cross-border cooperation within the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB).
It aims to contribute to EU strategic autonomy and reduce dependency on non-EU solutions.
There is a preference for solutions demonstrating interoperability and modularity ('Interoperable Modular and Scalable Architecture - IMOSA') including 'plug-and-play' capabilities.
Ethical considerations regarding autonomous triage decision algorithms must be addressed.
The potential for dual-use (defence, civil, law enforcement, other governmental use) for the developed technologies should be explored.

Grant Details